The cell he describes is a modern cell, alive today. That means it's the product of three or four billion years of evolution. During all that time, it's ancestors had to keep up with every other organism in their environment, reproducing at least as fast as the others, protecting themselves from the others and in many cases, hunting down and eating the others. Every change it made added to its complexity. It and its modern contemporaries would find the First Living Thing to be a small and very insignificant lunch, hardly worth eating.

If Professor Tour knew what the FLT was actually like, he could give us a more accurate estimate of how likely it was to have formed naturally. As things are, he can only tell us how likely a complex MODERN organism is to have formed spontaneously in one step, but we've known that was zero for a long time.

The cell he describes is a modern cell, alive today. That means it's the product of three or four billion years of evolution.

And you established this how, via time travel? Or was it a revelation from the Flying Dirt Monster? LOL

If Professor Tour knew what the FLT was actually like, he could give us a more accurate estimate of how likely it was to have formed naturally. As things are, he can only tell us how likely a complex MODERN organism is to have formed spontaneously in one step, but we've known that was zero for a long time.

It does not matter how complex the first living organism was. The probability of it being formed via random mixing of chemicals is exactly ZERO.

Why? Because the search space for a stochastic search mechanism (i.e., the random mixing of chemicals) that has no idea what how big the search space is to start with, is infinite.

Chaos begets chaos. As simple as that. Chaos destroys any minute order that forms by random chance. The notion that the original search space was small because the original self-replicating cell was simpler than the simplest modern cell is pure unmitigated hubristic BS from a bunch of clueless dirt worshippers. "Cargo cult science" does not do it justice.

"Assuming that I have something significant to contribute to the evolution vs. creation debate, many ask me to speak and write concerning my thoughts on the topic. However, I do not have anything substantive to say about it. I am a layman on the subject. Although I have read about a half dozen books on the debate, maybe a dozen, and though I can speak authoritatively on complex chemical synthesis, I am not qualified to enter the public discussion on evolution vs. creation. So please don’t ask me to be the speaker or debater at your event, and think carefully about asking me for an interview because I will probably not give you the profound quotations that you seek. You are of course free to quote me from what is written here, but do me the kindness of placing my statements in a fair context.

I have been labeled as an Intelligent Design (ID) proponent. I am not. I do not know how to use science to prove intelligent design although some others might. I am sympathetic to the arguments on the matter and I find some of them intriguing, but the scientific proof is not there, in my opinion. So I prefer to be free of that ID label. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal), one of the finest scientists, mathematicians and inventors that the world has ever enjoyed, and also among the most well-respected and deepest thinking Christian apologists, wrote in his Pensees 463, “It is a remarkable fact that no canonical [biblical] author has ever used nature to prove God. They all try to make people believe in him. David, Solomon, etc., never said: ‘There is no such thing as a vacuum, therefore God exists.’ They must have been cleverer than the cleverest of their successors, all of whom have used proofs from nature. This is very noteworthy.'” "

"Assuming that I have something significant to contribute to the evolution vs. creation debate, many ask me to speak and write concerning my thoughts on the topic. However, I do not have anything substantive to say about it. I am a layman on the subject. Although I have read about a half dozen books on the debate, maybe a dozen, and though I can speak authoritatively on complex chemical synthesis, I am not qualified to enter the public discussion on evolution vs. creation. So please don’t ask me to be the speaker or debater at your event, and think carefully about asking me for an interview because I will probably not give you the profound quotations that you seek. You are of course free to quote me from what is written here, but do me the kindness of placing my statements in a fair context.

All you can do is laugh at Creationists who are so desperate to sling any mud at evolution, So desperate they find a guy who flat out admits "I'm not qualified to comment on evolution", then quote his idea on evolution as some sort of magic evolution falsification. :D

All you can do is laugh at Creationists who are so desperate to sling any mud at evolution, So desperate they find a guy who flat out admits "I'm not qualified to comment on evolution", then quote his idea on evolution as some sort of magic evolution falsification.

LOL. Slinging mud at dirt only piles more dirt on top of a mountain of dirt.

Even assuming, just for grins and giggles, that evolution via RM+NS were possible, the problem is that it never started. You are still positing a stupid superstitious belief as a scientific hypothesis. You are still a chicken-feather voodoo scientist, a mud worshipper. Just find some mud and worship it as your daddy. Or is it your mommy?

You dirt worshippers need to grow both gonads and brains. James Tour has both.

I wonder why Tour even gave that lecture, since he admits it's out of his field. I think it's actually a "Gee whiz, life is so super complex that it has to have been made by a superior being' type of speech. He really doesnt touch on OOL very much.

If I was a believer, I'm not sure if I'd recommend this lecture. Check out the slide at 7:48.

"Every breath we take, and all that we see, touch, taste and smell is made of molecules. Our memories, which capture joys, pains or emotional struggles, are embedded in molecular structures and molecular potentials. Absolutely everything is molecular based."

If vjtorley hears about this, he'll take Professor Tour to task for this.

I wonder why Tour even gave that lecture, since he admits it's out of his field. I think it's actually a "Gee whiz, life is so super complex that it has to have been made by a superior being' type of speech. He really doesnt touch on OOL very much.

What is there to touch on? It's a stupid hypothesis that does not even get off the ground, pun intended.

If I was a believer, I'm not sure if I'd recommend this lecture. Check out the slide at 7:48.

"Every breath we take, and all that we see, touch, taste and smell is made of molecules. Our memories, which capture joys, pains or emotional struggles, are embedded in molecular structures and molecular potentials. Absolutely everything is molecular based."

If vjtorley hears about this, he'll take Professor Tour to task for this.

If Tour is a dualist, there is nothing wrong with those words. Our memories are indeed saved in physical molecules in the memory cortex. Whatever conscious qualities we ascribe to them via a spiritual entity does not change that fact. I don't see why you think this is controversial.

Nic, what made me think the lecture was on OOL was the first slide at the 12 sec mark where the Professor writes, "An opinion will be rendered showing that the strongest evidence against the proposals of current PREBIOTIC research is the researchers' own data." (My caps) Before that he writes of not considering "scientifically unknown entities" such as "a design agent".

Then he goes on to talk about the "simplest cell" and how mind boggling complex it is. Then he talks about "pre-biotic" and "abiogenesis" ... is anybody else starting to think the lecture is about OOL?

Oops, I apologise. I read Tour again and he really says he's not qualified to speak about ID. I guess I was just pulling for him, looking for some way to give him the benefit of the doubt about holding up a modern, highly evolved cell as an example of what had to form spontaneously for a naturalistic OOL to occur.

If he had actually explained that he doesn't know beans about OOL, that would sort of excuse him.

No, he did not simply assert it, he supplied a boat load of evidence to support his position. His entire presentation consisted of demonstrating how the spontaneous origin of life was impossible. That you don't like that fact doesn't change the situation one iota.

First off I'd like to thank the Reverend Mullenix for posting these paragraphs

"I do not know how to use science to prove intelligent design although some others might."

Actually, neither have evolutionists proven their religious worldview utilizing science without their flavour of religion and faith statement making when interpreting the data or observations to the general layman public. This is why it is imperative for them to religiously assume any change [real or imagined]is proof of evolution. Most often in any scientific research paper or article in science journals, throwing in words/terms like Darwin, evolved, evolution, natural selection, etc are used as fluff to gloss up the paper for the approval of the orthodoxy which runs science. Aside from the fact that it's healthy for future grants and other funding. People also need to understand that insert these words/terms also are a major form of Emperor Worship in which such insertions could be likened to placing a pinch of incense into an alter in front of the image of Darwin in recognition of his deity.

Reverend Mullenix's quote"I am sympathetic to the arguments on the matter and I find some of them intriguing, but the scientific proof is not there, in my opinion."

Actually, I like this honest statementas well. For example I am intrigued and fascinated by almost all Ool experiments, whether performed by a religiously committed Evolutionist or anyone of another religious persuasion. Although every single experiment performed has never produced life or at best provide only limited specs of building block material, they have given us some very important lessons. In every single experiment, they have proven that it takes an intelligence to think up a plan of action prior to carrying out the scheme. They must meditate and ponder what type of rimitive atmosphere would have been necessary, imagine [using the mind of course] just what chemicals would be necessary as the building blocks, what sort of energy source would be needed to spark life, etc. Even failure after failure should be applauded, because irrespective of belief on origins, every single experiment reveals that intelligence is imperative to creating life. Lessons learned from failure are a beautiful things.

Reverend Mullenix's quote“It is a remarkable fact that no canonical [biblical] author has ever used nature to prove God."

This is an absolute fact. In fact explaining the how would really have watered daown and actually distracted from the main message and reasons the biblical account was orignally written in the first place. But mankind has all eternity to figure it all out.

No, he did not simply assert it, he supplied a boat load of evidence to support his position. His entire presentation consisted of demonstrating how the spontaneous origin of life was impossible. That you don't like that fact doesn't change the situation one iota.

Sorry Nic but Tours did no such thing. It's a cliche but it Tours really did show abiogenesis to be impossible he could submit his results to Nature and would easily win the Nobel Prize. At best he showed trying to reconstruct a complicated chain of events that happened some 4 billion years ago is difficult, something researchers already know. Difficult does not mean impossible Nic.

"Sorry Nic but Tours did no such thing. It's a cliche but it Tours really did show abiogenesis to be impossible he could submit his results to Nature and would easily win the Nobel Prize."

Sorry, ghostrider, but you know as well as I do the vast majority of the scientific community will hang on tightly to their belief in evolution despite the mountains of evidence. That is what you are doing.

"Difficult does not mean impossible Nic."

As it was and is incredibly difficult for a group of intelligent agents, how much more so for a blind, mindless, purposeless process? As Dr. Tour pointed out, what would there be to guide this process to the next step? Why would it not simply keep producing non-functioning combinations? After all, such a process knows nothing of function or non-function.

Sorry, ghostrider, but you know as well as I do the vast majority of the scientific community will hang on tightly to their belief in evolution despite the mountains of evidence. That is what you are doing.

Ah, the old Creationist invisible "mountains of evidence" that falsifies ToE. The invisible mountains that can't be found in any science journals but only exists on ID-Creationist websites.

BTW didn't you just give me crap for mixing abiogenesis with evolution? :)

As it was and is incredibly difficult for a group of intelligent agents, how much more so for a blind, mindless, purposeless process?

Humans have been working on the issue for a few decades in a few dozen labs. Nature had a whole planet and hundreds of million years to do its experiments.

As Dr. Tour pointed out, what would there be to guide this process to the next step? Why would it not simply keep producing non-functioning combinations?

Why does it need to be guided? What makes it impossible for nature to create conditions which produced the first simple pre-biotic self replicators, jump starting the process?

"Ah, the old Creationist invisible "mountains of evidence" that falsifies ToE. The invisible mountains that can't be found in any science journals but only exists on ID-Creationist websites."

It's there if you choose to access it. The science journals you like to read are not the only source of information on the subject. If you really have an open mind on the subject have a look at what information the other side presents. Get over your silly ideas that qualified scientists cannot be creationists.

"BTW didn't you just give me crap for mixing abiogenesis with evolution? :)"

Maybe.:) The fact is, if you can't explain the origin of life talking about how it evolved is moot.

"Humans have been working on the issue for a few decades in a few dozen labs. Nature had a whole planet and hundreds of million years to do its experiments."

What human intelligence struggles with over decades, blind, mindless and purposeless processes are never going to accomplish. Hundreds of millions of years are of no help to you as Dr. Tour pointed out. In fact they are a stumbling block.

As said before, how does such a mindless process even know when it has hit upon something functional? Such processes don't possess the knowledge of 'functional'. In fact they possess no knowledge whatsoever. As such, they would not even know if something 'functional' was to arise and would, in the next moment, very likely undo what it had just done. Such processes have no knowledge of preservation of success as it has no knowledge it has succeeded.

"What makes it impossible for nature to create conditions which produced the first simple pre-biotic self replicators,..."

You flip off the term 'self-replicator' like creating such an organism would be no big deal at all. That was the whole point of Dr. Tours presentation. Developing such an organism is unbelievably difficult for intelligent beings, it would be beyond comprehension to believe a mindless process could accomplish such a thing.

Ghostrider, the barrier between chemical and biological evolution is a fabrication. While it may reflect a true difference in how a lab functions, it remains that the two processes must be connected by linear time because one must lead to the other. Bio evolution cannot exist without chemical evolution (according to any logical understanding of the theories).

I heard no Christian apologetics in his lecture. I never heard him say God did it. What he does say is that the explanations offered currently by evolutionists for abiogenesis is patently false.

You speak of nature "experimenting" but that very word indicates purpose and intelligence. Nature cannot experiment and even if a necessary component were created spontaneously, when it degraded nature would be oblivious to the fact that it was a useful component. All the useful parts have to arise spontaneously in the same place and fall into place. Which process, Tour explains, is impossible under our current understanding of chemistry.

The entire argument of chemical evolution is based on the premise that there is no God and since we're here it must have happened naturally.

If it were true that there were no God then I would agree, it MUST have happened somehow. But I would still disagree with the current theories and even suggest that conditions could never have existed on earth to produce life spontaneously given what we know about chemistry.

So aliens did it (or something similar and the can is kicked down the road into more deep time) or God did it are the only two competing theories with any credibility today.

Evolution, chem or bio, doesn't prove or disprove the existence of God. More noteworthy, it doesn't prove that God is unnecessary, rather it lends credibility to that point of view.

All the useful parts have to arise spontaneously in the same place and fall into place.

That's the stupid Creationist strawman that no one in the biological sciences thinks or says must have happened. The original pre-biotic self replicators were hypothesized to be much much simpler than the first intact cell.

The entire argument of chemical evolution is based on the premise that there is no God and since we're here it must have happened naturally.

No. Not even close. In fact that cockeyed view of how science works would be funny if it weren't so sad.

Scientific hypotheses like abiogenesis say nothing at all about the existence or non-existence of any God or Gods. All we can say is we have zero positive evidence that some external guiding intelligence was involved in abiogenesis and lots of evidence such an external intervention wasn't necessary.

Anonymous"Why does it need to be guided? What makes it impossible for nature to create conditions which produced the first simple pre-biotic self replicators, jump starting the process?"

I believe you are directing these questions to the wrong people. Shouldn't someone have asked those very questions to Stanley Miller and Harold Urey ? Or how about Watson and Crick ? Why not email Jack Szostak or Gerald Joyce all of whom claimed to have created at some time or another environmental conditions in the Lab that they believed existed early in the earth’s history. In these experiments and those today, these scientists have manufactured some of the molecules found in living things. So if the chemicals in the experiment are supposed to represent the earth’s early environment and the molecules produced represent the building blocks of life, whom or what do any of these scientists who performed those experiments represent? Does he or she represent blind chance or an intelligent entity?

The fact is they would come off as buffoons for trying to explain or even remotely prove how blind unguided forces accomplish anything. All any of those experiments prove is that an intelligent designer is absolutely required, even when there is failure in the experiment. How about that, even tinkering requires an intelligence.

Trying to hold onto such a stubbornly dumb belief system and defending it is actually an abuse and misuse of intelligence.

Even the kooky stupid fraud "bathybius haeckelii" was intelligently concocted.

ghostrider, I offered you a quote by a noted Harvard evolutionary biologist in which he explained why "just so" stories are accepted. It is a prior commitment to materialism. He went on to say that Divine must never be allowed a foot in the door.

That last sentiment is clearly the governing philosophy and why I say chemical evolution MUST be true for evolutionary theory to be true. Even life from outer space just pushes abiogenesis to a new place and time. To say bio evolution allows for a creator of life violates this fundamental philosophy as expressed by Richard Lewontin.

So I have to ask, which of you are telling the truth? You or Prof. Lewontin? Abiogenesis doesn't "say" there is no creator, it operates on the PREMISE that there is no creator. That's what "materialism is absolute..." means.

I'm thinking you've talked yourself into a box. Which would explain why you resort to mockery and laugh.

Sorry ohandy but the Lewontin quote that all Creationists love is quote mined. It comes from a 1997 review Lewontin did of Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World. Lewontin wasn't giving mainstream science's position, he was describing ideas Sagan covered in the book.

Abiogenesis like ALL scientific hypotheses operates on the idea that no supernatural intervention occurred. There is no science anywhere that allows for magic POOFING by any supernatural sprites, pixies, elves, or Gods.

Timmy:Now all the ID-Creationists have to do is come up with some positive evidence biological life was intelligently designed.

We have and obviously you are too stupid to understand it. You sure as hell cannot make a positive case for your position. If someone could we would be reading about it. Yet you don't even have a methodology beyond bald declarations.

Now I know that Timmy won't respond with anything of substance- wait for it...

ghostrider: "Why do you think if you somehow "disqualify" evolution that supernatural POOFery wins by default?"

I don't. That's just your predisposition to assume I do.

However, when evolutionary theory is shown faulty it does cut into the idea that creationism is "anti-science". It helps fight the bigotry against Christians who are the largest target for the anti-science accusation. It shows the truth about how much faith is a part of naturalism/materialism and how that effects the way evidence is viewed.

You say I quote mined, I say the quote accurately described the current view of evolution sciences. Do you disagree with the opinion expressed in the quote? Are you not fully committed to materialism? If materialism fails, do you look to spiritualism, or just assume you need to look harder?

The answer is obvious, you accept just-so stories because you are committed. You reject creation because it conflicts with your personal belief system, so you look at all evidence to confirm your worldview. The same can be said for creationists where we tend to look for confirmation as much as new knowledge. As the underdog, creationists tend to say let science go where it will. As the dominant philosophy, naturalists wish to dogmatically refuse creationism entry into the public discourse. You don't need a degree in psychology to see this.

How would a creationist paradigm in any way hinder science? How does common descent improve medicine, genetic research, or any science beyond evolutionary biology?

However, when evolutionary theory is shown faulty it does cut into the idea that creationism is "anti-science"

Except no one has ever shown evolutionary theory to be faulty. The first person to do so would be considered the most famous scientist of all time. All we get are Creationist morons pointing to disproven hypotheses about minor details and claiming that somehow falsifies the whole theory.

If materialism fails, do you look to spiritualism, or just assume you need to look harder?

Please explain how to do science if you have to allow for unpredictable supernatural intervention at every turn?

How does common descent improve medicine, genetic research, or any science beyond evolutionary biology?

Our understanding of common descent is why we can test new medication on non-human species. It also lets us predict the future evolutionary pathways of pathogens like the Zika virus so we may better prepare prevention. You can't name a single way the Creationist paradigm can help science.

"It does not matter how complex the first living organism was. The probability of it being formed via random mixing of chemicals is exactly ZERO.

Why? Because the search space for a stochastic search mechanism (i.e., the random mixing of chemicals) that has no idea what how big the search space is to start with, is infinite."

So nothing can form? Hydrogen and oxygen can't combine to make water because they have " no idea how big the search space is to begin with"? Carbon and oxygen can't combine into carbon dioxide? Because something (the atoms? The designer? God?) doesn't know how big the search space is?

Tell you what, tell us exactly what the First Living Thing was made of and how it was arranged and then you, me and the professor will all be in a position to start making odds.

So nothing can form? Hydrogen and oxygen can't combine to make water because they have " no idea how big the search space is to begin with"? Carbon and oxygen can't combine into carbon dioxide? Because something (the atoms? The designer? God?) doesn't know how big the search space is?

This is silly. The reason that oxygen and hydrogen exist in the first place is precisely because they were designed by an intelligent entity who knew that the size of the search space was infinite. The search space is infinite, whether or not the searcher is God or a stupid stochastic search system mixing things together at random. It takes intelligence to reduce the search space to something manageable.

Tell you what, tell us exactly what the First Living Thing was made of and how it was arranged and then you, me and the professor will all be in a position to start making odds.

This is nonsense. The odds of the first living organism, regardless of complexity, occurring by chance is exactly zero. It must have had at least 500 base pairs (I'm being extremely generous). This means that the search space was 2^500 or more. You could have a universe the size of quintillions of our universe doing stochastic searches for quintillions of years and nothing would come out of it. You know why? It's because chaos abhors order. It continually destroys any order that pops up.

You can't accept this simple truth because you are dirt worshipper with a hidden religious agenda. That's all.

But even before the first living organism could have appeared, you must have an appropriately ordered universe. So intelligent design is not just about living things, it's about the entire universe which was obviously designed and created.

And yes, before you ask, I do have an explanation for where the original designer came into existence and how. It did not happen by chance, I can assure you. But this is not the proper forum for it, I think.

It must have had at least 500 base pairs (I'm being extremely generous). This means that the search space was 2^500 or more.

I was being more than generous with the dirt worshipper because there is no way that for a random mixing mechanism to know the size of the search space or even what molecules should be in it in advance.

"The odds of the first living organism, regardless of complexity, occurring by chance is exactly zero. It must have had at least 500 base pairs (I'm being extremely generous). This means that the search space was 2^500 or more."

Forget the base pairs. That's DNA. Nobody in the OOL field thinks the First Living Thing had DNA. DNA came much later.

What does Intelligent Design Theory say about the FLT? How many atoms do they think it had? What kind of atoms? Most importantly, how were they arranged?

When ID can answer questions like that, it wll be in a position to start to calculate the odds of the FTL forming spontaneously. Until then, I would advise you all to tread cautiously lest you convince people that ID doesn't know what it's talking about.

LS: "And yes, before you ask, I do have an explanation for where the original designer came into existence and how. It did not happen by chance, I can assure you. But this is not the proper forum for it, I think."

When ID can answer questions like that, it wll be in a position to start to calculate the odds of the FTL forming spontaneously. Until then, I would advise you all to tread cautiously lest you convince people that ID doesn't know what it's talking about.

Advice about science coming from a dirt worshipper is worthless on the face of it. You miss the point of my argument (and that of James Tour) precisely because you have a religious pseudoscientific agenda. The point is two-fold. Here it is again:

1. If your search mechanism does not know the size of the search space, then the size is infinite.

2. For any non-trivial search space, the combinatorial explosion is such that a stochastic search mechanism is worthless. Why? Because chaos destroys any order the system manages to build as soon as it is built.

It's like the molecules of air in a room. Even though they move and interact randomly, they will NEVER pile together in one corner of the room.

Another analogy is random swells on the surface of a body of water. They will never come together to form a tsunami via random causes and effects.

For any non-trivial search space, the combinatorial explosion is such that a stochastic search mechanism is worthless.

Is is worth pointing out to the fruit loop for the 82nd time that evolution doesn't need to search some ginormous search space? In each generation it only needs to search the space immediately next to a known working genome. Selection then keeps the beneficial and neutral variations for the next generation.

Nah, he'll ignore reality like he always does.

Another analogy is random swells on the surface of a body of water. They will never come together to form a tsunami via random causes and effects.

Interesting fruit loop picked that as an example because that's exactly what science has evidence is the cause of huge rogue ocean waves.

Abstract: Super rogue waves with an amplitude of up to 5 times the background value are observed in a water-wave tank for the first time. Nonlinear focusing of the local wave amplitude occurs according to the higher-order breather solution of the nonlinear wave equation. The present result shows that rogue waves can also develop from very calm and apparently safe sea states. We expect the result to have a significant impact on studies of extreme ocean waves and to initiate related studies in other disciplines concerned with waves in nonlinear dispersive media, such as optics, plasma physics, and superfluidity.

Is is worth pointing out to the fruit loop for the 82nd time that evolution doesn't need to search some ginormous search space? In each generation it only needs to search the space immediately next to a known working genome. Selection then keeps the beneficial and neutral variations for the next generation.

Listen, you spineless and superstitious dirt-worshipping maggot. (LOL) I've heard this crap dozen of times before. A stochastic search mechanism has needs now? That's a laugh!

Dirt worshippers are definitely missing some major neuronal assembly. How can a random search mechanism know about needs? New genes must be created in order to evolve from primitive self-replicating cells to complex organisms. How does it know how many base pairs to create in any given sequence or even how many sequences it needs for a new functionality? Even a gene with just 500 base pairs is impossible to search with a stochastic search mechanism. Imagine one with billions of base pairs. The organism would perish if it had to wait for evolution to adapt to the environment.

Why are you people so stupid?

Abstract: Super rogue waves with an amplitude of up to 5 times the background value are observed in a water-wave tank for the first time.

LOL. A water wave tank contains random waves in your view? Even a huge ocean does not have purely random waves since the gravitational pull of the moon/sun, all sorts of non-stochastic weather systems (winds, cyclones, pressure systems, etc..) can conspire to create non-stochastic waves.

Why did I know fruit loop Louis would ignore reality again in favor of his usual incoherent ranting?

How did I know the dirt worshipper was gonna spew out more lies?

Anyone else accept his story about the Christian God being just one of many "Elohim" gods? That woo has as much credibility as anything else he dribbles out.

Actually, the Christian God, Yahweh Elohim, is an entire civilization of billions of individual Elohim (Gods). Unity is a very big thing to them and they prefer to be seen as one entity. This is not unlike the way the human brain, as Marvin Minsky so eloquently wrote about, is a society of many interacting entities. Christians don't realize that when their savior died on the cross, billions of conscious beings died with him.

On a side note, it's interesting to see that all dirt worshippers are essentially political animals. The brain-dead evotard is not interested in how I came up with my views but in how many other people accept my views. The primary goal of dirt worshippers is to belong to a herd and to oppose the other herds with everything they can muster. They are incapable of independent thought. Kind of like drones in a hive. How lame and how gutless can people get!

When it comes to theology Louis has been watching way too much TV. There is a whole network devoted to Louis' brand of theology, it's called SyFy.

Actually, the scriptures are a lot more sci-fi than most Christians and non-Christians think. The New Testament Bible mentioned instantaneous teleportation close to two thousands years before Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock showed up on TV.

And it is much, much more about advanced science than both the Christian and non-Christian world suspect. The entire book of Revelation, for example, is about hard-core science. The kind of science that is guaranteed to knock everybody's socks off when it is revealed to the world.

LS: "And yes, before you ask, I do have an explanation for where the original designer came into existence and how. It did not happen by chance, I can assure you. But this is not the proper forum for it, I think."

On the contrary I think your explanation is very relevant to this discussion and the forum. I'd be very interested to hear your ideas.

I'll try but only for the record. I will not expand much on it as it would require a book.

Let me first state that, unlike most Christians, I don't believe in an eternal, all powerful and all knowledgeable God that has always existed in his/her current form. I don't believe that creation started with a pre-existing super-intelligent entity. For emphasis, I don't believe that Yahweh has always existed in his present form. In fact, the scriptures (Isaiah) state that Yahweh was the first among many other Gods (Elohim or Lords). In fact, Yahweh himself claims to be the first and the last Elohim, meaning that all the others who came after him must accept his authority and pledge allegiance to him as the only Overlord. So yes, there was a beginning even for Yahweh. After all, he is referred to as the "ancient of time" and one becomes ancient only if one was young at one point.

I am a card-carrying Dualist with a capital D. This means that I believe that reality is a Yin-Yang duality consisting of two complementary-opposite realms. One realm is physical and causal. In this realm, things (i.e., particles and properties) can be created and destroyed. Even intelligence must exist in this realm because intelligence is a cause-effect phenomenon. Right off the bat, I claim that intelligence was not pre-existent and must have been created with everything else and that the original creation did not require intelligence.

The other realm is the spiritual realm. Again, it is the opposite of the physical realm. It consists of abstract (non-physical) things that can be neither destroyed nor created. They just are. Examples are beauty, order, disorder, ugliness, good, evil, etc. (They have to exist somewhere) Some of these entities also have the power to create things ex-nihilo in the physical realm. None of them are intelligent.

Given enough non-stochastic creative entities in search of things like order and beauty working together, they can eventually stumble upon causal structures such as intelligent mechanisms. A sort of bootstrapping, non-stochastic evolution can go on for eons and ultimately culminate into fully intelligent entities. These entities can in turn, over more eons, grow in knowledge, power and wisdom and join forces to create universes and living organisms.

The key word that I use here is "non-stochastic". This is the essential ingredient, the one ingredient that is missing in the materialist fairy tales.

"Let me first state that, unlike most Christians, I don't believe in an eternal, all powerful and all knowledgeable God that has always existed in his/her current form. I don't believe that creation started with a pre-existing super-intelligent entity. For emphasis, I don't believe that Yahweh has always existed in his present form. In fact, the scriptures (Isaiah) state that Yahweh was the first among many other Gods (Elohim or Lords). In fact, Yahweh himself claims to be the first and the last Elohim, meaning that all the others who came after him must accept his authority and pledge allegiance to him as the only Overlord. So yes, there was a beginning even for Yahweh. After all, he is referred to as the "ancient of time" and one becomes ancient only if one was young at one point."

Let me state what you believe is not Christianity, period. Call yourself what ever you wish, and believe whatever you wish, just don't tell people you're a Christian, because what you believe and the way your beliefs make you act have less than nothing to do with Christianity.

I don't care. Organized religion can kiss my asteroid. The master said "search and you shall find". He did not say, "Let a bunch of yahoos do your searching for you." I conduct my own search, thank you very much.

Nic: "Let me state what you believe is not Christianity, period. Call yourself what ever you wish, and believe whatever you wish, just don't tell people you're a Christian, because what you believe and the way your beliefs make you act have less than nothing to do with Christianity."

All I have to say on this subject is that I am glad that Mapou claims to be a Christian. It gives more credence to atheism.

Louis, do you consider yourself a Christian, something else or do you just have your own unique philosophy? You kind of sound like a cross between a Christian, a Raelian and a Buddhist!

Anybody who believes that Yahweh died for the sins of humanity is a Christian. This makes me a Christian. My understanding of the scriptures regarding the multitude of Gods is controversial only because organized religion made it controversial. They are either lying or sorely deceived. The scriptures not only mention the existence of multiple Gods, it mentions many of them by name. Some of the Gods, e.g., the ancient Gods of Egypt, had the power to transform matter on demand (wooden stick into serpent). The scriptures even state that we, humans, are also Gods (Elohim). Humans are the only Gods who are made of ordinary matter. Take it or leave it. I'm not preaching to anybody.

You are correct, for a change. I would rather die than represent modern Christianity. Sometimes, I'm ashamed to call myself a Christian and be seen as a Christian. Organized churches have turned the greatest religion in the world into a pathetic joke. In fact, I blame them for the rise of atheism/materialism and the Church of the Flying Dirt Monster.

"I never imagined I would live to see the day when evotards lump themselves in with YECs."

William, ghostrider and myself obviously do not share common ground when it comes to the origin of life, but we do share common ground when it comes to treating others in a decent and respectful manner.

Nic, unfortunately there are some sad and lonely people who are incapable of disagreeing with someone without taking it personally. These people deserve our pity, not our scorn. Unfortunately, Mapou makes that hard to do.

Phil 4:8 "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things."

I am not sure what religion Louis practices and of course he is to do whatever he wants. But any religion that does not promote kindness and respect, even for others who don't agree with you, isn't one I would value.

What a bunch of self-righteous jackasses you people are. One of my favorite stories is the one about the fall of Jericho. God destroyed everybody in Jericho except the prostitute and her family. You doofuses would condemn Jesus for hanging out with the prostitutes, the drunks and the tax collectors. You'd be like that jackass Judas who could not bear seeing the prostitute Mary Magdalene pouring expensive perfume on Jesus's feet.

I'd rather smoke weed and drink beer with prostitutes, drug addicts and homosexuals than befriend the likes of you. It's no wonder the evotards hang out with the YECs. You are two of a kind.

Like I said, I enjoy bashing jackasses and rub their noses in their own excrements. It's just a hobby of mine when I have some free time. I do my bashing between puffs on the bong. I find it therapeutic. LOL

Interesting study about drug use came out.... https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160411153006.htm

Interesting indeed. These kinds of studies can teach us a lot about the brain and consciousness. I like the comparison between the adult brain under LSD and the brain of a child. It's a good thing, though, that the adult brain is not like a child's brain. Otherwise, we would get nothing done. LOL

This reminds me of a drug study performed with spiders in the 80s, I believe. Spiders under the influence of cannabis spun very disorganized webs. Spiders under LSD, by contrast, spun perfect webs but declined to eat any prey stuck in them. They would cut the preys loose and fix the imperfections in the webs. And then starve.

Ghostrider, am I the only atheist that does not take pleasure in one "Christian" bad mouthing another Christian?

I don't think religion has anything to do with it. I see one raging butthole desperate for attention running around and crapping on everyone else including one decent chap who happens to be a Christian.

I just wonder if Cornelius realizes yet he's really backed the wrong horse on this one.

Backing a horse is one thing. Backing a horse's ass is another. And yet, Cornelius is backing two. Mapou and Joe/Virgil/Frankie.

You have to wonder why he would support two ID proponents who are even to batshit crazy for Barry Arrington to stand behind. And, keep in mind, Barry continues to support Bornagain77 and Gordon Mullings (dba KairosFocus).

Lous: "It's either life or no life. Lots of fun to be had by all who make it. It's party all the time in various galaxies far, far away."

And you get this idea from where? Isaiah? The Book of Mormon? Dianetics? Or was it just your bong?

I'm half joking, obviously. I have no idea what Yahweh has in store for the believers other than that we will be reborn into new incorruptible bodies and live forever.

The Christian belief in eternal hellfire is, as far as I can tell, an early Catholic Church adoption from pagan religions. They somehow managed to insert some of that crap into the New Testament compilation.

Louis: "I'm half joking, obviously. I have no idea what Yahweh has in store for the believers other than that we will be reborn into new incorruptible bodies and live forever."

I guess we should be relieved you are half joking, just not sure which half is the joke and which is not. You have definitely got some beliefs which are way out there (literally) so not so obvious to us as it is to you.

I never thought of inserting the bong in my anus. But, whatever makes you happy.

It's no secret that all male homosexuals have a thing for anal sex. Heterosexuals rarely refer to it in conversation.

It occurs to me that half of you atheist evotards are closet male homosexuals. You are here on Cornelius's blog only because you have a bone to pick with organized fundamentalist Christianity, because of their condemnation of homosexuality.

So is that it, Billy boy? Are you gay? Don't hate me because you're gay, man. This is one Christian that does not pass judgment on homosexuals or anybody else for that matter. In fact, I hang out with gays, prostitutes, drug addicts, gang bangers, you name it. My business partner is gay. Everybody is forgiven by Yahweh in my religion, even mass murderers. As long as they believe. But if you don't believe, you are up shit creek. Sorry.

The only reason that I oppose evotards is that they are actively trying to destroy my religion while promoting their own little dirt worshipping cult.

The way evolutionists leave the subject of their assertions concerning 'selection', etc, to the imagination, reminds me of an uncle of mine, who would answer my questions, as he was fixing a radio (in the good old days, when Noah were a lad), with the simple word, 'Because'.

My first thought was that it made our atheist chum seem a wee bit more plausible

But, on reflection, I wondered if it was indeed more plausible to leave a blank for the subject of a putatively explanatory statement of science ? Evidently, not.

Tour: ""Assuming that I have something significant to contribute to the evolution vs. creation debate, many ask me to speak and write concerning my thoughts on the topic. However, I do not have anything substantive to say about it. I am a layman on the subject. Although I have read about a half dozen books on the debate, maybe a dozen, and though I can speak authoritatively on complex chemical synthesis, I am not qualified to enter the public discussion on evolution vs. creation. So please don’t ask me to be the speaker or debater at your event, and think carefully about asking me for an interview because I will probably not give you the profound quotations that you seek. You are of course free to quote me from what is written here, but do me the kindness of placing my statements in a fair context."

ghostrider: So desperate they find a guy who flat out admits "I'm not qualified to comment on evolution"

I asked you to link to that quote and you can't.

Tour: I am not qualified to enter the public discussion on evolution vs. creation.

Looks like you got trouble with reading comprehension.

Ghostrider what makes your antics so laughable is that you actually think that only certain people can comment on evolution

If that is the case, are then students in high school not qualified to comment on evolution? Funny how virtually all of them have to study it but maybe cannot comment on it 'cause they're not qualified.

Really? Dude I'm taking it up with you since your quote of Tour is falsely attributed. You made it up.

And you did not answer why you are more qualified to comment on it than Tour or anyone on this board.

And if you watch his video from U. of Waterloo you will see that he comments on evolution. I don't think you can watch it.

From the student held back for a number of years at "LOL Elementary School"

"But Tour himself said he's not qualified."

Interestingly, neither are Stanley Miller, Harold Uey, Francis Crick, James 'blacks are inferior' Watson, Jack Szostak or James Joyce qualified to teach us anything about how blind unguide forces with no purpose spontaneously morphed life. However, they are extremely over qualified [perhaps more so than any ID proponent] to teach us how to intelligently design experiments for proving how life got here on Earth by means of intelligent manipulation, tinkering up to eventual point creation of life on Earth.

Tsk tsk. The poor little baby engineer is having a hissy fit because no one will pay attention to his LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! childish antics. Don't cry little baby. I'm sure you'll find some gullible teen-aged girl somewhere who will be impressed with your I'M AN ENGINEER!! self-aggrandizing.

Anonymous"Tsk tsk. The poor little baby engineer is having a hissy fit because no one will pay attention to his LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! childish antics. Don't cry little baby. I'm sure you'll find some gullible teen-aged girl somewhere who will be impressed with your I'M AN ENGINEER!! self-aggrandizing."

Fascinating, giving 'Anonymous' the benefit of doubt that he had something viable to add to the consersation, I just tried an attempt at removing all mockery, insults and derogatory language to see if there was anything of worth or value and all that came up was a message that said:

Anonymous"Tell us again how human designed lawn sprinklers prove rain clouds were Designed."

Why don't you explain to everyone here how the misuse and abuse of science has reverse engineered the natural mechanisms in Nature which create and moderate and has brought us climate change without playing the usual stupid rightwing Fundie vrs Leftwing Fundie slop. Seriously, you can do it. How does Nature form clouds and create rainfal scenarios ? Explain to everyone why sprinklers are worthless because nature replicated is far more sustainable. Maybe you'll need to consult with other Fundies first. Come back to us next week and leave the Cut n Paste theology out of it. Just go with your gut experience, because after all, you're a scientist.

Nic: "No, he did not simply assert it, he supplied a boat load of evidence to support his position."

His actual assertion was that the First Living Thing was an ultra complex fully modern cell such as the one he shows in the cutaway model at the beginning of his lecture. This is complete nonsense. He then compounded the nonsense with a boatload of evidence that such a complex cell couldn't appear spontaneously - and nobody in the OOL field would disagree with that.

Real OOL researchers believe the FLT was something very small and extremely simple and that complexity was added in very small steps over a long period of time through evolution.

What bothers me is not that Tour is wrong, but how he reacts. He gives a hundred reasons why a modern cell could not have been the FLT and then he grows visibly frustrated and angry because people refuse to disagree with him, yet they still think he's crazy.

He reminds me very much of Barry Arrington and his Sure Fire Method of Fail:

1: Don't understand what you're talking about.

2: "Explain" what is so obvious to you in your ignorance.

3: When nobody agrees with you, assume it's because they're wicked. (Not ignorant, but wicked because IT'S SO OBVIOUS!!!)

4: Ignore other people's answers because you KNOW you're right and ITS SO SIMPLE!!

5: Once you've explained it a few times, it becomes so obvious that people with different answers are just denying the OBVIOUS TRUTH that they MUST be WICKED and start the bannination rolling.

6:Continue until all the smart, knowledgeable people have been banned and then start a round of mutual congratulations for sticking up for the truth.

Professor Tour's problem is that he can only use steps 1 through 4. And he can only do that in front of undergraduates or true believers. (I'd love to see him give that lecture at an OOL convention, although it would be ugly.)

But there's still hope for him. Vote for Ted Cruz and the Prof might get his banhammer.

Cool study about spiders and drugs, I'll look it up. I checked your blog, you have some unusual ideas about motion, distance etc I'm not familiar with those issues. I'll read more tomorrow

Nobody understands motion, especially physicists. Once you come to grips with the fact that space/distance is a perceptual illusion (i.e., an abstract creation of the spirit/consciousness), then all bets are off. All of a sudden, paradoxes disappear and then the hard truth hits you: The physics community is clueless.

My point is, if the physics community is clueless about fundamental and essential aspects of reality, what can one say about a bunch of dirt worshippers and their little religious cult?

Oh funny how no engineering tie-in mentioned on this board, what am I missing? Some kind of animus there against engineers obviously, just out of the blue.

Hey ghostrider lets have a little fun, I mean you are all about science and everything, maybe music too.

Now I don't know if you've ever played bass guitar but suppose you were a junior in college and missed a test and have to take a makeup. The prof knows you are learning bass, and gives you a word problem. He says "pluck the bass string for A2 so that you get only 6 harmonics, fundamental included. Now assume every component damps out at the same rate, with damping ratio of .71 caused by your hand at the bridge. Now draw the poles of the string response in the complex plane."

So ghostrider you all about science and everything, what course are you taking in this scenario?

And we understand that you could draw those poles in the diagram, but when you connect all the points of those poles in the order of the imaginary component through the origin what shape would the locus of those points make? And how many poles are there?

The good thing about pole-zero plots is that as a junior, you would probably have to be at the top of you class to be able to visualize 4-dimensional complex space as an overlapping pair of 3-D spaces. But as a mediocre bass player and student, you should have no problem with the problem as stated, with just the pole location in the complex plane.

Again, how many poles in your diagram, and what shape does that locus of points outline? And what course is this?

Mullenix: Real OOL researchers believe the FLT was something very small and extremely simple and that complexity was added in very small steps over a long period of time through evolution.

You so funny. Something extremely simple that could replicate. Oh just by accident it decided to replicate, hee hee. And guys that "believe" something for which there is zero evidence. Not virtually zero, actually zero. Where have we heard that argument before from the same guys.

But there's still hope for him. Vote for Ted Cruz and the Prof might get his banhammer.

You so funny. Thank you thank you for illustrating what's at stake here, that politics and the culture war have completely infested science, and your thinking too on this.

You so funny. Something extremely simple that could replicate. Oh just by accident it decided to replicate, hee hee. And guys that "believe" something for which there is zero evidence. Not virtually zero, actually zero. Where have we heard that argument before from the same guys.

I don't have time to read the whole article right now, but I did take a quick look at the first bit. Found it contained a very interesting comment.

"But no such coordination is required in the system we designed, which makes it simpler in many ways," she says. "This suggests that there may be other mechanisms of copying information that follow this method using chemistry that could be simpler than the process cells use. What we showed in the paper was a capacity to take a given chemical message—a sequence of 1s and 0s—and make more copies of that message through a new, designed self-replication process." Rebecca Schulman

Funny how the word 'designed' is so prominent in her comment, don't you think?

Even though the researchers said their new system was simpler, it still required intelligence in its design. I don't know for sure, but in my humble opinion this is what might be called an own goal.:)

Their new research found that it is possible to design a mechanism for copying chemical information very accurately without relying on biological enzymes to assemble and separate sequence copies. Instead, the researchers relied only on simple kinds of attachments—molecular binding and unbinding reactions that they designed—and mechanical forces.

Anonymous"But what do those idiot OOL researchers at Caltech know compared to a new EE?"

Pathetic really. Did you selectively read that article ? In several areas all they talk about is how complex life is now compared to the sumple experiment with which they DESIGNED. All they through they speak of their DESIGNED experiments. Then towards the end of the article they apparently used a magic crystal ball to decipher their Crystal Mysticism and said this:

"Our findings show that there is a bewildering variety of imaginable ways that chemical systems could self-replicate and evolve"

So basically they used their imagination in designing their experiment for a purposed outcome and furthered used their imagination to contemplate the plethora of possibilities it could have happened ?

This was a smokescreen experiment utilizing intelligent design and then faking it in the commentary as spontaneous poofing theory. Live Science last month came out with a list of other true to life IDiot experiments

http://www.livescience.com/13363-7-theories-origin-life.html

Can you imagine where mankind would be if lying wasn't the basis for belief in science ? For one thing our planet's health wouldn't be in the crapper.

Wow Pastor Franckfurter. I've seen some massively ignorant Creationists in my day but you're in the 99th percentile. Humans design experiment to test natural processes so natural processes must be designed too.

"You aren't going to start with the idiotic "the human experiment was designed so the natural process being studied must be designed too" nonsense are you? You're better than that."

It's not nonsense at all, it is a legitimate observation which requires an explanation.

It has been demonstrated continually that intelligent agents working for years have an extremely difficult challenge to construct such systems working with already existing systems. How do you suppose blind, mindless, purposeless and goalless forces, possessing no intellect whatsoever, would stumble upon such mechanism with nothing remotely resembling the end product at their disposal? Such stumbling would be required billions upon billions of times and always at an extremely serendipitous juncture. To believe this to have occurred is the very definition of blind faith.

You can say this is an argument from credulity if you wish. However, as the claim itself goes infinitely beyond incredulous an incredulous response is not out of order.

Anonymous"Humans design experiment to test natural processes so natural processes must be designed too."

No, it's just that you folks should be held to proving your core religious dogma beliefs if you use your power to shove them down other's throats

Anonymous "Do you ever step back and look at the stupidity you type?"

I'm not the one who believes in spontaneous insta-poof of life for no ryhme or reason from nothingness, just pointless dumb luck. So yes, you need to prove unguided processes without intelligence. I't's no one else's responsibility to prove to you that your god really does exist.

It's not nonsense at all, it is a legitimate observation which requires an explanation.

No Nic, besides being a logical fallacy (i.e. "All fish live in water. Whale live in water. Therefore whales are fish") it's also really dumb. Like I just pointed out to nat, every scientific experiment ever done was human designed. That doesn't means science knows absolutely nothing about the natural world.

Think! If you do an experiment with mist from a garden hose to create an artificial rainbow does that demonstrate real rainbows are Intelligently Designed? Or does it merely show real rainbows are created through the natural physical process of light diffracting through water droplets?

Nope, your side has the ruling prevailing religious orthodoxy that controls the show, therefore the burden is on you. Besides, even through countless tinkering and failure, your side has provided massive amounts of evidence that intelligence is not only required, but a must. Even when that intelligence is misused and abused in the explanation

Are you a closet homosexual or something? Is this the reason why you are here on Cornelius's blog bashing YECs day in and day out? What's up with your obsession with fundamentalist Christianity? Why don't you hang out with your own people since you despise Christians so much? Goddammit.

I asked the question because it occurred to me that a sizeable proportion of atheist evotards are homosexuals. They have a bone to pick with fundamentalist Christians since many fundies condemn homosexual and would like to criminalize it.

So they attack an entire religion because of the actions of some of its members. All the while they promote their own chicken shit voodoo cult of dirt worship. This is hypocritical, IMO. It's like a werewolf accusing a vampire of being a freak of nature.

My understanding of Christianity is that Yahweh forgives everybody, even murderers. I personally condemn nobody for being sinners, regardless of their sins. My business partner is gay and we get along fine socially. But I will strongly oppose any jackass, homosexual or not, who is hellbent on destroying my religion. It seems that this is what Timothy Horton and his sidekick, Billy boy, are doing here.

As a result, I suspect that they are both homosexuals. I just wish that they would set the record straight and reveal their hidden agenda.

"Think! If you do an experiment with mist from a garden hose to create an artificial rainbow does that demonstrate real rainbows are Intelligently Designed? Or does it merely show real rainbows are created through the natural physical process of light diffracting through water droplets?"

Yes, that's exactly what it shows.

Now you think. As the water and sunlight are to the rainbow, intelligence and design are to the resulting mechanism. Can you see where the actual parallel lies?

"Why don't you hang out with your own people since you despise Christians so much?"

Guess what, Louis. I'm a Christian and I would rather hang out with William and ghostrider than someone of your type. At least they possess decency and integrity. I do not feel despised by them, but I do by you. When they throw insults at me I take them as harmless banter. Not so in your case. I sense real hatred from you and that is not something that should be said of a Christian.

Well, sometimes scientists observe stuff, without actually experimenting. And we can learn about designed stuff. And sometimes we can infer laws. But to say that since a designed thing did this, we know an undesigned thing can also, just doesn't follow.

Well, sometimes scientists observe stuff, without actually experimenting. And we can learn about designed stuff. And sometimes we can infer laws. But to say that since a designed thing did this, we know an undesigned thing can also, just doesn't follow.

natchuster"It's like this. If the experiments were designed you can't prove anything about undesigned stuff."

He knows full well what everyone here is talking about and he is well aware he'd look like a bigger fool and buffoon if he even attempted to prove his religious worldview. It also illustrates what he cowardly hides behind dirty socks with holes in them spouting off insults and mockery rather than deal with an intelligent explanation for his faith. Aside from that he probably would be embarrassed if family, friends and work mates knew what a fool he was making of himself here. Then again if they go to the same church, maybe not.